Weeknotes 26:02

Posted 3 hours ago

Week of January 4–10

Robert Wolgemuth, the husband of the founder for Revive Our Hearts Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, died on Saturday after a brief but intense battle with complications from pneumonia. By the middle of the week, it became clear that he was not going to recover and transitioned into comfort care. It brought back memories from this past summer when my wife and I had to make a similar decision with my mother-in-law.

I spent the end of the week creating new content for the Revive Our Hearts website to prepare for his death. Friday was an intense day as we had to create content knowing that at any minutes we might receive words of his passing. I had trouble sleeping the night before so it was a challenge to think and focus on coming up with solutions, especially for a hero image that needed to respond to different viewport sizes. But I hung with it, came up with solutions, and set us up in a good spot once that word came.

We received the news early Saturday morning that Robert had gone to be with the Lord. I spent about half the day working to get the content live and then make some edits and changes along the way.

I had the privilege of meeting Robert last April when I onboarded with Revive Our Hearts in Michigan. I am grateful for the memories I have of a few personal interactions and then other times interacting with him on a Zoom call with a lot of other staff. Robert earned my respect quickly with the way that he treated and honored his wife, Nancy, and how he interacted with other staff. I wish I could have had more personal conversations with him. I am enjoying reading one of his books and getting to know him through it.

I will probably write more later about Robert and my thoughts on his life and observations from the brief time I knew him.

Read more about Robert on Revive Our Hearts site

Robert’s death comes on the heels of other deaths of people I knew or family of friends. I walked with my friend through the last 4 months of his father’s life which ended earlier in the week. My friend had walked with me through my grief last year when my mother-in-law died. A couple of weeks ago, I found out that a friend of mine lost his 40-day battle with brain cancer. And this month marks the third year since I lost my mother. I have been dealing with a lot of grief lately, either directly or from caring for friends who have been touched by it. It weighed on me quite a bit this week as we waited to hear about Robert’s home-going.

As a Christian, I have a very different perspective on death. But that does not change the reality of the loss or the grief. But in the midst of the grief, there is hope and joy that surpasses all understanding and I am incredibly grateful for that.

2025 Review

I finally finished my first post about 2025. There are many different ways that I could tell the story of my year. One way is through numbers. It doesn’t tell the whole story, but it gives a good sense of my year and a starting point for sharing some of the experiences that shaped my year.

Read 2025 by the numbers

Other notes from the week:

  • I moved my office back into my office. I had temporarily relocated to our master bedroom, which we have yet to relocate to after my mother-in-law’s death over the summer. I relocated for three weeks while my kids were home for Christmas. My daughter and my son’s fiancé left on the previous Saturday so I spent Sunday relocated back to my space.
  • I felt a bit under the weather. It felt like allergies and I had mild headaches through the day. It slowed me down a little bit and had some trouble sleeping at night. As I mentioned, I really felt the effects on Friday after not sleeping well the night before.
  • I took down our Christmas tree on Saturday afternoon. It always feels sad to do that. I miss the lighted tree as I come down the stairs from my office.

Articles I read

2025 Year Review posts

I enjoy reading about how other people experienced the year.

All other articles

What I watched

  • Why CSS Grid feels complex, and how to keep it simple (Kevin Powell) – I have tended to use this type of smaller, simplier Grid solution than to use Grid for the entire layout of my page. I have even used Grid with one row layouts because I like the fr units and because it is a bit more rigid than Flexbox.

Books

Walking

I didn’t get out and walk this week. It was a busy week and I was feeling a bit under the weather. There were a few days I could have gotten out and just chose not to. But there were other days I worked a bit longer.

What I played

  • MLB The Show 20 (Twins) – I was bummed to lose the second game of the ALCS to the Rays. I made several mistakes that cost me the game.
  • NBA2K25 (Nuggets) – I won the only game I played this week against the Timberwolves. I came back from an early 11 point deficit and won a close one.

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